We are having rare studies on Nuristan and facing difficulties accessing to sources that study Nuristan, hence this blog was created to explore the unique history,culture society,custom,people and political situation of Nuristan. This Blog aims to collect information from different sources to create a data base of Nuristan related issues exploring Nuristan s' challenges and ask this question from all Nuristanis.Have We Enlightened Nuristan with the Light of Islam,Knowledge and Unity?

Jun 11, 2012

Here are some brief
descriptions of peoples who are claimed in one way or another to be connected
to Albanians or Illyrians. This message will show that any connections are
either coincidental or related but not closely.

First the Caucasian Albanians (Albania of the Caucasus):

Due to European Albania and Caucasian Albania having the same name, some people
often assume that these two areas were related. We of course know that they are
not. The two Albanias only share a name. We know the language of the Caucasian
Albanians. Their language was an older form of the Udi language. Udi is a
little known language which belongs to the Northeast Caucasian language family.
There are nearly 6,000 speakers of Udi. Unlike most of their close linguistic
relatives who are Muslim, the Udi are Orthodox Christians.

Next, most of us have heard about the light-eyed, light-haired European looking
Kalasha of the mountainous areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. First we have to
get something straight. There are in fact two distinct linguistic groups we
have lumped as Kalasha. There are the Kalasha of Pakistan who are mostly
non-Muslim who speak a Dardic language. Then there are the Kalasha of
Afghanistan who are now Muslim and speak a Nuristani language. So what are Dardic
and Nuristani languages? Well both are Indo-Iranian languages. Nuristani forms
the third branch of Indo-Iranian along with Indo-Aryan and Iranian. Dardic is
more problematic. It is either the fourth branch of Indo-Iranian or a
sub-branch of Indo-Aryan. I'll let the specialists decide that one.

Due to these people looking very European and in my opinion rather Albanian,
early explorers assumed these people were leftovers from Alexander's army.
Well, we have a problem. First, Alexander's army and its elite did not settle
in any significant numbers in the wilds of these areas. The elite settled the
cities not these kind of hard to reach places. Second, these people do not
speak Greek or Macedonian. Third, we now know that the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians
were of course an Indo-European people who came from the West ultimately. The
Indo-Iranian Urheimat itself is somewhere in southern Russia.

So why do these people look more European than many of their linguistic
relatives such as the Hindi speakers or even Persian speakers? It is simple.
The substratum population of India had a huge amount of non-Indo-European
people, mostly Dravidian speakers and tribals. Iran's pre-Indo-European people
included the Elamites. Both of these people were relatively darker than the
Indo-Europeans and outnumbered the Indo-Europeans (Proto-Indo-Iranians) who
settled in these areas from the west. On the other hand the Indo-Iranians who
settled in these mountainous areas met very few substratum groups and probably
outnumbered them.

Linguistically, these languages are Indo-Iranian and for sure not Greek or
Albanian, although they are related to both Greek and Albanian, not just as
close as some would think. For example look at the numerals of Dardic Kalasha
and Nuristani Kalasha:

So before you read a theory that sound a bit far out, do more reading on the
subject and do some research from scholarly materials and then come to a
conclusion based on sound evidence. If you look at Sanskrit and Persian
numerals you will see they align very closely with these two Kalasha sets
closer than to any other IE branch.

Now did these people ever come into contact with Alexander's army? Perhaps they
did. Could there be any Greek words in their lexicon? Maybe If there are any,
these would be an adstratum.

Next, most of us have heard about the light-eyed, light-haired
looking

I think one of the greatest mistake made in distinguishing nationality is the
stressing on the outside appearance. Like you said the language is the main
component to decide on smb's origin. But sometime this is not enough too, ex.
the Greeks speak a language somehow similar (on paper) to the Ancient Greeks
but the only relation to them comes through Albanians.

Much of the people who are Greek today are more properly termed Hellenized or
"Grecofied". As the Greek Urheimat is around Thessaly/Central Greece/Peloponnese,
Greeks found elsewhere are a mix of those early Greek colonizers and the
indigenous population with more of the latter than the former. Also since Greek
was once a prestigious and written language it gained even more speakers. Also
many conquerors have come into Greece from Byzantine to Ottoman times. This is
why Greeks look so varied in appearance because there are so many different
people in them now. It is not unlike the Italians. Yes they do have Roman blood
in them but also, Etruscan, Messapic, some Celtic, Greek, Albanian and a lot of
Germanic. Sicily is even more complicated with its older layers of Sicani,
Elymians, Sicels, Romans, Germans, Albanians, and finally Arabs as well.

I think what makes Albanian different from either the Greeks or the Italians is
their relative purity due to Albania being a bit more isolated. I would put the
Albanian Urheimat around Mat/Kruja/Tirana in the more mountainous regions. This
kept those Illyrians there pure from as much influence from the the Romans/Byzantines/Slavs.
As well, those tribes seemed to have more or less kept to themselves a bit
more. It is similar to the Catholic Irish. They have lived on their island
isolated from others for quite a while. As well the Nuristani and Kalasha have
been quite isolated from others for a long time. This is why I tend to look at
the isolated Indo-Europeans to know something on how the original Indo-European
looked. Most other Indo-European have by now been so mixed with
non-Indo-Europeans that the original appearance as been watered down. The
Germanic people have heavy Finnic influence, the Armenians have Urartian
influence, the Persians have Elamite influence etc.